This is a must watch due to how it quickly rocketed to the top of various critics’ best of the year lists and garnered a slew of awards. Some may also remember it hitting the news due to the crew’s unauthorized filming inside Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park though it turns out to be for only a very short scene.

Six-year-old girl Moonee and her mother Halley are long-term residents in a run-down motel near Walt Disney World. Halley spends most of her time lazing around and scrounges for money by selling counterfeit perfume to tourists or petty theft. Left unsupervised, Moonee amuses herself by playing with her friends, other children who live in such motels. This includes pranks like spitting on cars, vandalizing abandoned houses, and begging for money to buy ice-cream. They cause all manner of trouble to the motel’s manager Bobby who despite his gruff exterior is tolerant of their antics. Things get more serious when Halley is nearly arrested for selling perfume at a luxury hotel nearby and resorts to using her room to prostitute herself, keeping Moonee in the bathroom while the John is in the room.

Moonee and her young friends are the stars of the film and as usual, I am constantly amazed by how directors can wring such excellent performances out of such young children. Some the pranks that they get up to truly deplorable and I don’t find those amusing at all but I can’t deny that the film captures Moonee’s joy as a free and unrestrained child. The constant comings and goings of helicopters ferrying rich tourists make for a strong if unsubtle statement on inequality and of course no one can miss how the attractions that she brings her friends to are poor people’s versions of Disney attractions, such as looking at cows grazing in a field in lieu of the Animal Kingdom park. I especially liked how there appears to be an entire industry focused on fleecing tourists with their gaudy storefronts and business names copying Disney properties and all this serves as the backdrop to Moonee’s childhood.

I’m more dubious about the direction in which the film pushes our sympathies. Moonee of course deserves every bit of our affection and sympathy but the film also goes to some pains to show the strength of the relationship between her and her mother. They clearly love each other and Moonee very much wants to stay with her mother. On the other hand, the audience can easily discern that Halley is a horrible and irresponsible parent. She is a terrible role model and basically raises Moonee on an irregular diet of junk food. The contrast of their dire living conditions and the wealthy Disney tourists nearby is meant to highlight inequality but their misery is so easily attributed to Halley that there’s no heat in this comparison. It’s especially disconcerting when the other characters who live there are much better parents and people than Hally, such as Ashley who holds down a regular job at the nearby diner. The film portrays Moonee being taken away by the government as something bad but while I don’t have much confidence in child welfare services, Moonee’s future with her mother looks like it’s a dead-end.

Make no mistake I do like this film and it’s hard to say no to a film with such strong child actors. My favorite character however is Willem Dafoe’s embattled motel manager who is as sympathetic as he can be while still wanting to hold on to his job and not wanting to be taken for a fool. Still I like this a lot less than director Sean Baker’s previous work Tangerine which was a much more impactful film with characters who are more deserving of our sympathy.